9486 in the collection  

Empty Shelves, Filled With Imagination

Ohanian Comment: This
is typical of mayor-run districts: "Restructure
schools" in the name of reform--with no thought
of the importance of libraries. The miracle is
that there is still a librarian. Now We Are
Six, by A. A. Milne: short and sweet poems
middle-class Moms read to their toddlers a
couple of generations ago. Yes, one can argue
that they touch the 4-year-old in all of us,
but. . . . surely most teenagers need something
different.

New York State allots $6.25 per student in
public school libraries. That won't even buy
one paperback.

By James Angelos

WHEN Geri Ellner began her job this school year
as the librarian — or in the current parlance,
as a library media specialist — at the Brooklyn
Collegiate, a public school for Grades 6
through 12 in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, she did not
have much of a book collection.

Many of the shelves in the small library,
illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights, were
bare, and many books were outdated or not
particularly age-appropriate, like a children’s
volume titled Now We Are Six.

So Ms. Ellner, who has been working in the
school library system for 10 years, did what
she could to improve the library with a limited
book budget of $3,244 for the school year.

First, she spaced out the books so that the
library shelves looked fuller. She created a
"Memory Lane" section for the children’s books
and a magazine section using donations from her
doctor and dentist on Long Island, where she
lives.

"We have that nicely spread out so it looks
like there are more books," she said the other
day, pointing to her fiction section, a row of
half-empty shelves. "We don't want to look too
impoverished." She then turned to her short
story section, referring to it with a wry smile
as the "short short story section."

New York public school libraries are allotted
$6.25 per student in state funding for the
purchase of new books, an amount that
librarians say is not always sufficient for
keeping a library current.

The problem is often compounded by the opening
of new schools. Brooklyn Collegiate opened in
2004, in a prisonlike, brown brick building
with tiny windows. The building used to house
Intermediate School 55, which was closed for
poor performance, and the new school inherited
the old library, which lacked books for high
school students.

Like many school librarians, Ms. Ellner applies
for private grants to purchase books, and this
year, she used donated money to acquire SAT
study books and college preparation guides.

Ms. Ellner likes to point out that even in an
Internet age, teenagers still enjoy reading
books, and there was evidence to support her
assertion on this afternoon.

Javenia Harrigan, a seventh grader who had come
by the library for her volunteer work shift
(she hoped her service would help her get into
Harvard Law School), stamped the library’s
imprint on five new books, three of which Ms.
Ellner originally bought for her teenage
daughter.

As she placed the books on the shelves, Javenia
talked about a library book she had read, a
1998 Newbery Medal winner called Out of the
Dust, about a Dust Bowl-era girl whose
mother is burned to death in an accident.

"It's really sad," Javenia said. "It’s a good
story, though."


— James Angelos
New York Times
2008-12-19


---

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380   
[1] 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>    Last >>